Some diabetics must test themselves for stat glucose levels up to four times a day in order to determine whether or not they should self-administer insulin. The procedure involves drawing a drop of blood from the diabetic's finger, placing the drop of blood on a commercially available blood glucose test strip, and comparing the resulting color of the test strip with a standard chart to determine the blood glucose concentration. It is important that the end of the finger site area be cleaned properly prior to puncturing the skin to avoid contamination because diabetics are more prone to infection and do not heal as quickly as the average members of the population. Consequently, it is necessary for the diabetic to first clean the site area at the end of the finger with an antiseptic and then insert a sharp lancet into the finger so that the drop of blood will be released.
While the use of alcohol in pint or quart bottles combined with cotton balls for cleaning the site area is feasible in a home environment, it is impractical for the diabetic who is at work, school, or traveling. Some diabetics have improvised by carrying separate lancets and prepackaged, sealed, alcohol swabs that are designed for large macro cleaning areas to prepare for hypodermic needle injections. Examples of such prepackaged alcohol swabs are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,542,634, Such, et al , and an integral lancet and holder is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,358,689, Higgins. The disadvantage of using this system is that the prepackaged alcohol swab contains much more alcohol than is required for a finger stick procedure to draw a drop of blood and because these are two separate items, sometimes the diabetic will have the swabs and not the lancet and sometimes the diabetic will find that he has the lancet and not the swab when he is away from home.
Combination packages containing alcohol swabs for macro cleaning for hypodermic needle injection in combination with hypodermic needles are available as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 2,117,469, Woodyat, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,851,036, Lipari and U.S. Pat. No. 2,707,743, Gingras. Such devices, of course, are designed for the injection of medication into the body and their use to draw a drop of blood and then be discarded would result in a prohibitively expensive cost to the user.